cont'd

monday

13. the boss wakes up at 4:30 to go for a run

14.1. we meet stefan and geoff for lunch. geoff's a student in ucl who did a short internship in our lab over the summer. he paid his own way to sfn, and managed, in a week when accommodation was booked more solid than bethlehem at yuletide, to find a room in a cheap-ass international hostel. this would have been totally great except for the fact that it burned to the ground on sunday night. he got out in time and managed to rescue his passport, but the rest of his stuff was in cinders. this should not really be amusing, but somehow, it kind of is.

[i go conveniently deaf as fs tells me that there's a lesson to be learned here]

14.1.1. apparently his stuff would have been ok, except that the firemen had to hack through the floor of his room to get to the flames, which meant that everything upstairs ended up very much not.

14.2. a very deep discussion of ica and artifact removal ensues. i give up about 10 minutes in and start meditating on a far more engaging issue: if lost is such a crappy show, why is it still consistently #5 in the nielsen's, and, more importantly, why am i still watching it?

14.3. stefan leavs to give his presentation. geoff and the boss and i get lunch. i have "chinese" "food".

15.1. the ethics of cognitive enhancement sounds like it will be a great talk, and it is, even though there is no mention whatsoever about the recent issues with dope tests in the acbl

15.2. the speaker is thomas murray. he talks about how immeasurably difficult it is to talk about ethics when it comes to cognition, because (a) we don't yet have a good framework for where the lines should be drawn, and (b) whether cognitive enhancement is "right" is highly situational (no one's going to crucify you for drinking coffee before an exam, for example)

15.3. he ends with an incredibly sad story. his daughter was murdered a few years ago, and he talks about how (obviously) that cut to the bone. he goes on to tell us about this drug for ptsd victims that lessens the subjective feeling of trauma -- and how, for all the money in the world -- he wouldn't have taken it if he had been offered it at the time, because the pain - though agonizing - was necessary to honour the memory of his child. that dulling it would somehow have been robbing himself of all-important, healing grief. my granite heart is moved, just a little bit.

16.1. dinner with geoff, josh, h.y. (a singaporean psychiatrist working in nih) and two random grad students/freeloaders. it's supposed to be a lab outing, but it really isn't. my boss asks me to book the place. steakhouses call out my name, but i resist mightily.

16.2. we end up in a very decent seafood place (i'll pop the name in here when it comes to me). it's the first ok-ish meal i've had since landing, and i tuck into my crabs with gusto. there are also $5 martinis and plenty of chardonnay, and i don't even care that some people at the table think that singapore is the BEST. PLACE. ON. EARTH.

16.3. it's a very good advertisement for why i should be intoxicated, like, all the time. i'd get along so much better with everyone.

16.4. we walk back to the hotel. geoff has managed to get one of his colleagues to let him crash at his hotel room. we pass the capitol, splendidly lit, and take about a zillion pictures, most of them slightly out of focus.

(tbc)